Topics:<\/b> Christian Life; Christmas; Family; Gifts; Giving; Love; Ministry<\/p>\n
Reference:<\/b> Matthew 6:1\u20134<\/p>\n
The small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past ten years or so.<\/p>\n
It all began because my husband, Mike, hated Christmas\u2014oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the overspending, the frantic running around at the last minute, the gifts given in desperation. Knowing he felt that way, I decided to do something different.<\/p>\n
Our son Kevin was wrestling at the junior high school. Shortly before Christmas his team played a team sponsored by an inner-city church. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, were a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team\u2019s boys were wrestling without headgear.<\/p>\n
It was a luxury they obviously could not afford. We ended up walloping them. As each boy got up from the mat, he swaggered in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn\u2019t acknowledge defeat. Mike shook his head sadly. \u201cI wish just one of them could have won,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
That afternoon I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed an envelope on the tree with a note telling Mike what I had done as my gift to him. His smile was the brightest thing that Christmas.<\/p>\n
Each Christmas after that, I sent Mike\u2019s gift money to a different group\u2014one year sending a group of youngsters with mental disabilities to a hockey game, another year giving a check to elderly brothers whose home had burned down the week before Christmas.<\/p>\n
We lost Mike to cancer. When Christmas rolled around, I was so wrapped up in grief that I barely got the tree up. But on Christmas Eve I placed an envelope on the tree, and in the morning it was joined by three more. Each of our children had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad.<\/p>\n
\u2014Anonymous<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Topics: Christian Life; Christmas; Family; Gifts; Giving; Love; Ministry Reference: Matthew 6:1\u20134 The small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past ten years or so. It all began because my husband, Mike, hated Christmas\u2014oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but … Continue reading “AN
\n ENVELOPE FOR MIKE”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}